When I first heard about Guitar Rig a couple of years ago, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. As a guitar player, having the option of eight of my personal favorite amps along with the ability to customize microphone placement and cabinet selection, as well a multitude of distortion, modulation, and reverb and delay effects were more than a dream come true. However, I have had experiences in the past where gear (especially software) is not as easy to use as it looks or it doesn’t sound as good as the manufacturer claims.
Thankfully all my worries were put to rest during the five minutes it took me to get up and running with Guitar Rig 2. It literally took me two minutes to download the software and about another one or two minutes to get signal going. I’ve waited two years to play this software and it was even better than I could have imagined. The ease of dragging and dropping amp types and effects into the signal flow enabled me to quickly experiment with something and if I didn’t like the result I changed it just as quickly as if it was never there.
Now, I live in an apartment and it is very hard for me to get good amp tones when you live on the third floor and are surrounded by neighbors; and since I own a tube amp, I need to really crank it to get that “tubey” sound. With Guitar Rig 2, all I had to do was put on headphones and I was jamming through a giant Marshall stack in a coliseum or a sitting in a smoky jazz lounge spitting notes through a JC-120.
There are many benefits of using Guitar Rig 2 in your home, studio, or live rig. The ability to change amp models on the fly or to add effects and control the parameters with the Rig Kontrol 2 not only eases the workflow but also makes guitar playing fun and interesting again. I’ve been playing guitar for eight years and I’ve gotten to the point where my personal rig is almost boring. I can’t afford to buy all the amps, cabinets, effects, and microphones to get the sound I really want. But for less than $600, I get literally over 1,000 different combinations of amps, cabs, effects, and mics… all just a mouse click away!!! How amazing is that?!